‘If Ida is bent on going she must go without me,’ said Mrs. Morton. ‘I—I have had enough of those horrid beasts. Ida’s nonsense will be the death of me.’
‘I don’t see much good in going on with that
woman there,’ said Ida gloomily. ‘She would be sure to stifle all inquiry.’
‘A good thing too,’ muttered poor, weary Mrs. Morton.
Ida turned the leaves of the visitors’ book till she found the names of Lord and Lady Northmoor, and then, growing more eager as obstructions came in her way, and not liking to turn back as if on a fool’s errand, she suggested to Miss Gattoni that questions might be asked about their visit. The Tyrolean patois was far beyond her, and not too comprehensible to her friend, but there was a waiter who could speak French, and the landlady’s German was tolerable.
The milord and miladi were perfectly remembered, as well as their long detention, but the return had been by way of Italy, so they had not revisited Botzen with their child the next spring.
‘But,’ said the hostess, ‘there is a young woman in the next street who can tell you more than I. She offered herself as a nurse.’
This person was at once sent for. She was the same who had been mentioned by Mrs. Bury, but she had exchanged the peasant costume, which had, perhaps, only been assumed to please the English ladies, for the townswoman’s universal endeavour at French fashion, which by no means enhanced her rather coarse beauty, which was more Italian than Austrian.
Italian was the tongue which chiefly served as a medium between her and Miss Gattoni, though hers was not pure enough to be easily understood. Mrs. Morton and Ida put questions which Miss Gattoni
translated as best she could, and made out as much as possible of the answers. It was elicited that she had not been allowed to see the English miladi. All had been settled by the signora who came yearly, and they had rejected her after all her trouble; the doctor had recommended her, and though her creatura would have been just the right age, and that little ipocrila’s child was older, ever so much older—she spread out her hands to indicate infinity.